BILL STEPHENS “IN THE GROOVE” 10/31/11

If ever there was an appropriate time to throw around some Halloween references as they pertain to JFR’s exploits in Las Vegas this past weekend, now would be it.

Vegas was:

1. A Chamber of Horrors

2. Diabolical

3. A Blood Bath

4. Torture to Witness

5. A Horrifying Monster

Get the idea?

The Countdown to the Championship rolled into the second-last race of 2011 with Mike and Robert looking to take a run at new points leader Jack Beckman, and when the first round of eliminations was over, they, along with John, were out of the show. That was a big hurt.

The stark reality is two Don Schumacher Racing drivers, Matt Hagan and Jack Beckman, are essentially tied for the points lead—only one point separating them—and Mike and Robert are 4th and 5th. Mike is 34 points out of first and Robert is 71 back. Cruz Pedregon is in third, 26 points out of the lead with the last race of the year, the Auto Club Finals in Pomona, will determine the 2011 Funny Car Full Throttle championship.

A round win is worth 20 points, winning the race earns 100 points, qualifying No. 1 awards 8 points, and setting a new elapsed time national record adds 20 points. The most points you can earn at a national event is 128 so neither Mike or Robert are mathematically out of it, however John, in 9th place, is 216 points back and won’t be able to defend his 2010 championship. The only other factor to remember in all this is the oildown penalties which deduct points from a driver’s total, depending on how many oildowns he or she has been responsible for during the season.

Can Mike or Robert stage a miraculous come-from-behind rally and overhaul the drivers ahead of them in the season’s final race? Well, you need look no further than last year’s Auto Club Finals when John pulled off the unlikely by derailing Matt Hagan’s title hopes in the season finale and winning championship #15 when Hagan lost in Round 1 and John, needing to advance two rounds further, went the distance.

There have been other final-race heroics in recent years in both Top Fuel and Funny Car which led to dramatic championship closeouts. Of course, Tony Schumacher’s 2006 AAA Finals comeback in Top Fuel and what has been called “The Run” will never be forgotten, not to mention his similar 2007 championship clincher in Pomona the following year.

Cruz Pedregon came virtually out of nowhere to win the Funny Car championship in 2008 when Tim Wilkerson appeared headed for his first career championship but struggled mightily when the Countdown began and went into a free-fall.

Going further back, Dick Lahaie’s 1987 Top Fuel crown was won in the semi-finals of that year’s concluding race and Joe Amato’s third career Top Fuel championship was locked up at the 1990 Finals when Gary Ormsby—needing to beat Joe to win his second straight title—fouled out against Joe in the final round.

Of course, Mike and Robert would have rather not been in this situation in the first place. Mike led the points for much of the season, but in the last three races he’s scored exactly one round win. Robert left Seattle to end the Western Swing in second place in the Full Throttle standings, but outside of his win in Reading, went through a dismal stretch from Brainerd to Las Vegas in which he had four first-round losses and one second-round loss, dropping him to where he is now, fifth.

But as John likes to say, “Nobody has won anything yet.”

Keep the faith.